Tag: flowers

Apology Flowers by Jessica D. Thompson

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Apology Flowers

After an argument, he buys her a grocery store
bouquet. Two weeks later, she tears apart

his apology flowers—the pink roses, white
lilies, purple and yellow mums, the red-striped

carnations—trying to salvage what has not
decayed. She carries the bones of them

out to the garden—the spent blooms,
the limp stems. To the winter garden

of stubborn dirt clods and dry stalk stubbles.
They never got to enjoy last summer’s sweet

corn. The raccoons got there before
they could harvest anything of worth.

The bouquet grows smaller. Today, she lifts
the last rose from its tall watery grave.

She finds a smaller vase, fills it to the brim
with fresh water, fluffs the fading flower

heads. Wipes away the fallen petals.

*

Jessica D. Thompson’s poems have appeared in magazines and journals such as ONE ART, Verse Daily, Thimble, Gyroscope Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, Eclectica, the Southern Review, and are forthcoming in Critical Humanities (Marshall University). In 2024, her poetry collection “Daybreak and Deep” was shortlisted for the Indiana Authors Award. Her poetry collection, “The Mood Ring Diaries,” released in 2025, was a finalist in the American Book Fest Best Book Awards for Narrative Poetry. Jessica has worked as a carhop, led groups into wild caves, answered crisis hotlines, and was a recruiter for a global corporation before retiring to a small cabin in the middle of a hardwood forest.

Two Poems by Tresha Faye Haefner

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Why I Write About Flowers in a Time of War
Because so many can’t write
about the jasmine blooming
in the flowerpot this morning.
Because they can’t see
the sun rise over a window box of mint
or go looking in the pantry for coffee and dried figs.
The blood is still wet on bowling shoes,
on camouflage book bags,
and patches of dried earth under the olive trees.
There are people who will never know
the peace of a red-bud breaking open
or the helplessness of roses drying in a neighbor’s yard.
But if a flower fights for anything
It’s only for the right to live, in a forest or field
Where it will feed dragonflies and pollinate more of itself.
Tigerlily spreading its yellow self, swallowtail landing
On a patch of purple lantana.
Because nature is not a distraction, but an instruction.
Rivers feed oceans. Dying logs feed
grubs who recreate the soil.
The soft liver of any dying animal
responds to its collapse by giving back
whatever it had. The only response to violence
is to throw your body as deep as you can
into the darkness, until something takes hold
of you, and uses your dying sorrow
to bloom.
*
One Day A Bird
Ate the last hate in your heart.
Plucked it out like an oily black sunflower seed
and flew away.
You went for a walk in your neighborhood, past the church
That wasn’t yours, past the signs for political candidates
You didn’t much care for. You didn’t mind.
There was really no time anymore to be angry at your last lover
Or the one before that. Or to send bad feelings to the mayor of your city,
Or the governor of your state.
You liked this feeling of being cloudlike and unencumbered.
You learned to like your neighbors,
Even the ones who flicked cigarette butts on their lawn.
And the woman at the grocery store who never smiles at you.
Even the fences didn’t bother you anymore. They were ugly, yes,
But they belonged to someone hungry, someone who liked being warm
on cold nights and drinking hard-cider
and the feel of clothes out of the laundry machine.
Everyone, you realize, is the same when they are watching
YouTube videos of a cat, or sitting in a doctor’s office, waiting for news.
You had been angry before, at all the people who wouldn’t worship
your thoughts, or pray to your private wishes. But that was before.
Before that bird came and plucked the last hatred out of your heart.
And where was it now, you wondered?
As you stared at the sky, waiting for it to circle back
and land on the ugly, ugly house
that once had been a collection of trees
and now was somebody’s home.
*
Tresha Faye Haefner’s poetry appears, or is forthcoming in several journals and magazines, most notably Blood Lotus, Blue Mesa Review, The Cincinnati Review, Five South, Hunger Mountain, Mid-America Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, Radar, Rattle, TinderBox and Up the Staircase Quarterly. Her work has garnered several accolades, including the 2011 Robert and Adele Schiff Poetry Prize, and a 2012, 2020, and 2021 nomination for a Pushcart. Her first manuscript, “Pleasures of the Bear” was a finalist for prizes from both Moon City Press and Glass Lyre Press. It was published by Pine Row Press under the title When the Moon Had Antlers in 2023. Find her at www.thepoetrysalon.com.

Two Poems by Betsy Mars

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Kavod HaMet*

I circle among my dead,
trying not to neglect anyone.
What can I say of those
I have never known?
Even my mother eludes me,
her mind ever hidden
in shadows. We all flee
when we imagine danger,
acquiring a taste
for what can be carried,
the weight of the unrisen.

*honoring the dead

*

Bearing Water

To wash dust from jagged leaves
I turn the hose on the hibiscus.
Shriveled flowers fall to dirt,
water drips into soil, roots
reach for a sip, when suddenly
a moth, its rusty wings heavy
with moisture, fanning the same water
into steam, flutters to the earth,
damned while new buds open.
Some feel my intentions as mercy,
others nearly drown.

*

Betsy Mars practices poetry, photography, pet maintenance, and publishes an occasional anthology through Kingly Street Press. Her second anthology, Floored, is now available on Amazon. In 2020, her poem was selected as a winner in Alexandria Quarterly´s first line poetry contest series. In addition, she was a semi-finalist in the Jack Grapes poetry contest as well as the Poetry Super Highway annual contest. Her work has recently appeared in Sky Island Journal, Kissing Dynamite, Better Than Starbucks, and Gyroscope among others. She is the author of Alinea (Picture Show Press) and co-author of In the Muddle of the Night with Alan Walowitz (Arroyo Seco Press).

Two Poems by Mark Saba

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Flowers in the Dark

The young man holding flowers
delivered our food in three boxes.
Loose potatoes and apples, lettuce

partially wrapped beside a box of butter,
berries, almonds, and Greek cheese.
He wasn’t sure which flowers we liked

so bought three: one, wrapped tulips
and two alstroemeria. Did we like
the purple or peach? He stood

in his buttoned rust jacket, a shadow
of the boy who graduated with my son
six years ago, now a generation

of wise old youth holding flowers
for their elders. Which one don’t you want
he asked. It will look nice

in my apartment. He stood there
six feet away in the dark
having delivered our groceries

holding a bouquet of flowers
that I’m not sure he really wanted
or knew what to do with

once back to his other world
the one without flowers
or any place to put them.

*

The Broken

My brother, my daughter, my father,
my wife. A cloudy eye, piece of leg
and vanishing arm.

An asymmetry in stride, an upbeat cheek
adjacent to uncertain lips.
The visitors come whole, hoping to embrace

the broken pieces of those they’d once known
but have been disassembled
as they try to reconstruct.

Outside, under searing light,
the rehab grounds remain dressed
in autumn finery: greens and golds

atop fiery trees, a harboring mountain,
glass-walled rooms that look out
and allow a looking in. My son,

my husband, my sister, my dear friend.
We hold the pieces of you
and let the pieces fall.

*

Mark Saba has been writing fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction for 40 years. His book publications include four works of fiction and three of poetry, most recently Two Novellas: A Luke of All Ages / Fire and Ice (fiction), Calling the Names (poetry) and Ghost Tracks (stories about Pittsburgh, where he grew up). Saba’s work has appeared widely in literary magazines around the U.S. and abroad. His is also a painter, and works as a medical illustrator at Yale University. Please see marksabawriter.com.